Friday –

There’s no Hacker School on Fridays so we have our D&D games then, and we met today at 1pm to do just that. There’s construction going on at the old Hacker School place, and the new place has people from The Ladders who have to do Actual Work, but we found a secluded area at the old space that didn’t have any construction workers and set up our dice and minis.

We played from 2pm until about 7pm – Martin, Matt, Alisa, Ian were there at the start and James joined us a few hours in. They were fighting a giant slime beast accidentally created by an inept wizard’s apprentice.

They didn’t manage to kill the giant slime beast in time, so we decided to hold another session on Sunday.

Martin and I went to get a burger a 5 guys. I managed to spill ketchup everywhere ( I tried to get a giant boat of it (about a handful) to bring back and it slipped out of my hand). The guy at the counter was super cool about it. I learned my lesson and just took a little, covered cup of ketchup.

I found Mary wandering around the Hacker School space and managed to convince her to help me out with the Space Adventure game for 20 minutes. I’m hoping to finish up the collision detection with her on Monday.

I worked on my game for quite a while longer, then went home. Ian and Levi were looking for something to do, so we played Counterspell, a game I designed (with the help of Daniel, Nathaniel, and others from Lawrence). We had a good time, and Ian pulled an amazing win by cloning a spell four times and managing to roll Levi as the target for all five copies.

I worked on my Space Adventure game for quite a while longer and finally fell asleep, probably around 2 am.

Saturday –

Woke up around noon. Did nothing all day except work on my game, eat chinese/thai food, and play StarCraft 2 / Antichamber / FTL.

Sunday –

Took the 3 to the 1 to Hacker School to pick up the D&D map, then walked to Prince Street and took the N to Matt’s apartment in Astoria, Queens. There was a door that looked like a hotel, and another door that was locked. I called him and said the door was locked, and he came down to let me in – exiting through the door that looked like a hotel. His apartment was super swanky, which was awesome – he’s a super humble guy and I didn’t expect it. James and his long-time girlfriend Liz were there already, and we waited for Alisa to show up. I was about 30 minutes late, and Alisa was about an hour late – it was cool though, since we created an elf sorcerer for Liz, and transferred James’ character to an actual character sheet.

We played from 2:30 or so until 7, and had a good time. Ate pizza, etc. The game was a scripted loss for them (it was the first part of a longer campaign), and I felt bad having Liz’s first experience playing D&D be one, but that’s okay. They fought an Illithid with several Thrall – way above their level, and now they’re captured. All part of the plan.

Took the N home with everyone but Matt (since he was already home) and became dehydrated on the way – I drank a bunch of water, then passed out on my bed until Greta called around 11 on her way home from work. I was glad to be able to chat with her, and felt a lot better.

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

Peter Norvig, who finished up his residency with Hacker School today, wears amazing shirts. Apparently his wife makes them for him. We decided to have a Peter Norvig Shirt Day today to celebrate, so a bunch of people dressed up in Hawaiian shirts. I put on a brown short-sleeved shirt with flowers on it – sadly, the most Hawaiian shirt I have out here.

Arrived at Hacker School on time, after getting breakfast at Jazzy’s. I worked with Erik, Alex, and Matt to finish up the Risk AI – We had it done by 5pm, which was the deadline. Matt and I worked on a dumb AI for it (available online!) that was about 30 minutes of work away from being done at 5. So close. Lunch was at the Gyro cart across the street, which was surprisingly fresh and delicious.

Presentations went a bit long, even though there were only a few of them – pretty much everyone went over the 2 or 5 minute time limit. We demoed the Risk AI program with the AI that Erik wrote. After the presentations, The Ladders – the company whom we’re renting space from – held a party with TONS of beer and pizza. I had a beer and some pizza while I chatted with some people from the ladders (Including an Asian guy named “Ha”, which I didn’t catch and asked, “Huh?” to which he responded, “Yeah.”).

Joy, giving her presentation at The Ladders space.

Matt and I retreated from the noise of the party and finished up our AI – It turned out that the crash was caused by the server incorrectly telling us that we had a valid move when we didn’t. I had another beer with pizza while we worked.

I ended up chatting with Travis for about an hour about NYC afterward, and then left to go home. The two beers, plus my lightweightness, made it so I pretty much passed out in my bed at around 10pm.

I woke up from 1am to 3:30am and spent some time working on Space Adventure – which is really coming along.

From Manhattan (the next day)

–Erty

I started today off by sleeping in again, but, being the second Wednesday of the month, it’s Irresponsible Wednesday so that was okay. Matt very kindly messaged me to make sure I was okay. I arrived at Hacker School around 2:30 pm. Only five hours late…

I worked with Erik, Alex, and Matt on the Risk AI for a few hours – it’s working now, and by working I mean that we can get a couple of the AIs hooked up to a server, only to have them quickly crash because we built them without having a test platform. We got lunch at Getting Hungry, and chatted about Erik’s startup – Snowball. (Yeah, they’re website doesn’t say much).

We’re aiming to be done by presentation time tomorrow. I’m hopeful but not super optimistic. I’ll be devoting most of my time tomorrow to that.

After Hacker School was over at 6:30, I caught the 1 and rode it two stops south to a place called the Brandy Library, which was pretty much exactly what it sounds like – a bookstore turned bar/lounge with hundreds of different kinds of alcohol.

My mom’s friend from graduate school, Sam Medley, was there doing a tasting for his Kentucky Bourbon – Old Medley and Wathen’s Single Barrel aged. It’s delicious and very smooth. Sam was giving a sales pitch when I arrived, and kept looking at me like, where do I know him from? I introduced myself and he remembered me instantly – I did some web work for him a while ago. We chatted for a bit, and I may have got some consulting work with the person who was helping Sam with the tastings!

Brandy Library. Sam is in the left back corner.

I left after a bit so I didn’t get in the way of his sales pitches, but I the meeting was enjoyable (and great networking!).

Back to Hacker School for a bit afterward – I’m stuck on some collision detection for Space Adventure, so I’m hoping to pair with Mary on that tomorrow. I’ve updated the working copy at http://handprintgames.com. Basically it’s really hard to tell which direction you’re colliding with something in, especially on the corners.

Rode the train home, chatted with Greta and my mom, surfed the internet, sent some emails, and wrote this post.

I made an interesting observation while on the phone with my mom. I said, “I’m really excited for Hacker School to be over. Not because I want it to be over, but because I’m excited to be that much better at programming.”

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

I started out today pretty tired, but made it to Hacker School on time. I spent the day over at the old location after check-in since that’s where the Risk AI people were working. As usual, the last 10% is taking 90% of the time – we’re very close on many fronts, but it’s probably going to take us at least until the end of the week to finalize everything. I also made some excellent progress on my Space Adventure game – I’ve updated the work in progress on http://handprintgames.com. It needs a bit of help in the UX department, but I’m happy with how it’s coming along. (Hit “3” then “1” on the screen where you’re choosing the attributes, etc. if you can’t get past that). Still, of course, a work in progress.

Lunch with Peter Norvig and a couple of Hacker Schoolers including Joy, Martin, Matt, and Erik today – Dos Toros Burritos in the park. We mostly spent the time asking Peter questions about programming and stuff. He agreed that Python is a better language for AI than  Lisp, which, he says, was mainly chosen for AI because it was the most advanced language at the time, which allowed users to focus on the hard problems rather than implementing data structures.

When we got back, I worked a bit on projects, especially pairing with Mary, a facilitator, who wrote the Javascript engine that I’m using for Space Adventure.

I signed up for a 30-minute time slot with Peter, and asked him specifically about my school idea. I was pretty awkward about it, but he had some good things to say. I really just wanted his opinion on it, but I didn’t explain it very well. I’m still happy with the advice he had – basically what I already knew, but I think that’s good since it means I’m on the right track. The most interesting thing he had to say was that schools and online courses need to provide the ability for students to practice on their own, exposure to a community, and motivation to continue, either internally or externally.

He also wished me good luck and told me to keep him posted about it (yay!)

I think a lot of the people at Hacker School are a bit starstruck by him, which makes just hanging out and coding a bit awkward. I know tomorrow’s “office hours” list already has a backlog.

After a bit of work with Matt on a “really dumb” test AI for the Risk game, I took the 1 train to the Lincoln Center, where I entered the David H. Koch theater (yeah that Koch) and picked up my tickets for “Monkey: Journey to the West”. I grabbed some pics on the way in:

The entrance to the theater.

People milling around beforehand.

The upper floor of the theater.

I had seen an ad for the performance a few weeks ago and bought tickets to the Tuesday night performance, since I figured I would have the best chance of getting good seats – and I did – third floor, fourth row, right in the middle. I had a very nice, clear view of the stage.

The performance itself was very well executed. It was the story of Xi You Ji – Journey to the West, an ancient Chinese tale about a group of characters who travel to India to retrieve some sutras – which stars a young, innocent Buddhist priest named Tripitaka, and a mischievous monkey king named Sun Wu Kong (“Monkey who is aware of emptiness”).

The producers were the same as The Gorillaz, which was what prompted me to go in the first place – the music was a blend of ancient Chinese instruments and modern synth pop, and the characters were all extraordinary acrobats – lots of jumping, flips, rope climbing, and aerial silks. The costuming was very well done, and the scene changes were covered by animation from the graphics side of Gorillaz.

The performance wasn’t perfect – there were a few slips, goofs, and underdone acting, but the overall impression was excellent, the humor was well done, and the visuals were stunning. The final act – featuring a massive statue of Buddha, was extremely well executed.

Also: the entire thing was in Chinese, with English subtitles projected above. (supertitles?)

Returned home after stopping at Hacker School to pick up my laptop (they were watching Firefly). Picked up a 5-pack of beer, a bottle of hot sauce, and some green tea on my way home at 5th ave market.

Played SC2 with Ian and now it’s bedtime.

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

Being a student at Hacker School, “Monday” is pretty much the best day of the week. Not only do you get to go back to Hacker School, but there’s a whole four days of Hacker School to look forward to. Mondays are also the talks by the residents, accompanied by dinner. Pretty much the best.

I was up late last night, probably until about two a.m., talking with Greta and Evan, and working on Space Adventure. Even so, I fell asleep with the window open, and woke up to a cool breeze and nice sunlight – perfect.

The building company has closed half of the Hacker School floor for reconstruction, so about half of us are in space donated by The Ladders, who appear to be some sort of job searching company. The space is nice – large windows, good outlet coverage, although a bit loud or overly quiet at times. I hung out for about half an hour before Alex and I walked back to the old space to work with Ian and Erik on the Risk AI.

I got a sandwich and black iced tea from Pret – I plan on drinking a lot more tea as soon as I can remember to buy some on my way in to Hacker School.  Worked on Risk interspersed with Space Adventure throughout the day. I have to watch a talk by Peter Norvig before I can talk to him, which I really need to do before he leaves on Thursday to go back to Google.

Paired with Sam and Julie for a while on a python sound generator – turns out an 8-bit sample doesn’t sound as good as a 32-bit sample…

We were getting close on the Risk AI when it was suddenly time to walk to the Tumblr offices, to attend a talk on Natural Language Processing by Peter Norvig. There was pasta and soda and beer, including Blue Sky Black Cherry Cola, which is pretty much my childhood.

Some pics:

Tumblring

Eating Dinner @ Tumblr. From left to right: Mary, ?, Nina, Ian.

The talk was good, and technical – how to do spell check and word splitting given a giant amount of data (google’s n-gram lists). Basically, use probabilities to figure out what the word should be.

Stuck around for the Q&A, then took the N home and called my dad while walking from Barclays Center.

I did manage to leave my power cord at Hacker School, so I’m writing these blog posts with my screen at half brightness and my laptop on power-saver mode. I’m exited to see what happens tomorrow!

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

Imogen moved out of the apartment today, meaning that I am taking over her room. It’s a lot larger, and has two large windows that face what I assume to be south – I can see the Statue of Liberty off in the distance out of one, and the tail end of Manhattan out the other. It’s also not a shared room, which is nice in that I don’t have to worry about bothering a roommate when I’m up late at night.

I woke up just after noon and immediately began moving my stuff down the hall. I realized I was hungry after about an hour of that, and grabbed a vegetarian sandwich from Zito’s Sandwich shop. The guy who works there always puts on music from my past – lots of Blink 182, Green Day, etc. – Ought’s punk-pop. I had fun chatting with him just a bit while waiting for my sandwich. He’s 40, Italian, and very good-natured.

After Zito’s, it was back to work at the room. I don’t have much stuff here – just over a suitcase and a carryon’s worth, but I wanted to reorganize and search through it for my Raspberry Pi, which I’ve sadly given up on finding while I’m out here. It’ll probably turn up in Colorado when I move back, which is all the same to me; I don’t have a keyboard, monitor, or mouse for it out here.

I stopped by a store called Scardey Kat, which is a little shop that sells interesting things and is going out of business. Since they were having a 25% off sale, I stopped in and ended up buying some things – a new wallet, namely. My old one is holding up well, but as a trifold, it’s a bit thick for front-pocket wear, which I’ve taken to while in the city. More to stop worrying about pick-pockets than actually dissuade them.

I started working on Space Explore, which you can see a completely unfinished, and in fact barely started, version of at http://handprintgames.com. There’s not much to do yet – I think this is a fun project though and I’m interested to see how far I get before abandoning it. I’ve kind of accepted that fate for this project, and I’m taking it as an exploration in Javascript large-project structure more than anything. I chatted with Evan a bit right before bed about it, and we reminisced about how much we learned about text display from Terminal_.

Dinner was at Lotus, which is the Thai/Chinese place across the street. I have a standard fare there – a “classic” sandwich and a honey green tea bubble tea. Delicious, and a bit pricey.

Levi, Ian, and Broghanne came into my room (the one with A/C) and we played through a bit of Um – the space version. It was pretty good, Broghanne was new to TTRPG, so she was a bit tentative to play along, but Levi and Ian really got into it.

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

Alice posted to the Hacker School mailing list last night about needing a windows computer to create a boot disk to restore her Windows 8 computer, which had died. I responded (or, actually, had Matt respond for me since we were drinking beer together and he was the one with his phone open) and said I would be in by 2pm.

So in by 2pm I was. Pretty much on the dot. I ended up getting about 13 hours of sleep last night, minus an hour or so that I was awake around 3am.

It was around 100 degrees Fahrenheit today in NYC, or, at least 90. Hacker School is well air-conditioned, as was my room last night – Ian, our guest for a few weeks, ended up sleeping on the floor in my room, since it’s the only one in the house with A/C. He was going to spend the night in the living room, but I offered him space on our floor. He declined at first, but I invited him to enter the room for a second, where it was a good 20 degrees cooler than the rest of the apartment. So he moved in for the night.

Since I lent Alice my laptop at Hacker School, I spent the afternoon talking with Martin and Alex about my idea for a school – which I’m planning on posting a lot about soon, so I won’t go into detail here. Alex and I ended up getting pretty metaphysical, whereas Martin and I chatted mainly about educational differences between here and his home country of Sweden.

I worked on the Risk AI for a bit once I had my computer back, and pushed some good commits. It’s coming along and I’m optimistic about having it done by Monday night.

Walked along a neat little restaurant-filled segment of Manhattan with Martin and chatted about programming while searching for a place to get dinner to-go. We settled on a place that did (Greek?) food, which was tasty, but we forgot to get the sauces so it was a little bland.

Took the train home, finally with my Kindle charged, which made the trip more enjoyable and productive (less Nethack).

It’s still a bajillion degrees here but I guess that’s NYC in the summer.

From Brooklyn,

–Erty

Arrived at Hacker School around 10am, which gave me some time to surf the internet and work on the Risk AI server before meeting up with Alisa, Ian, Martin, and Matt for Dungeons and Dragons. I DMmed a short adventure in which the heroes, upon retrieving the treasure from a temple, are found by a group of Orcs who are after the same treasure. The Orcs were quickly defeated, but the troll that was chasing the Orcs took nearly all of the party’s resources to defeat, knocking two of them below zero HP (death is at -10). Afterward, we sat around for a while and worked on transferring our makeshift character sheets to real ones. We’re playing much more official version 3.5 now, instead of me making most of it up as we go along.

Afterward, around probably 7pm, Matt and I took the subway to Bohemian Hall Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens, NY. We met up with some of Matt’s friends there (he’s from Astoria), but spent pretty much the entire time talking about Hacker School and ignoring his friends. I had two beers and some Klobasa, which was a beer too many for me, and I took the subway home and pretty much passed out on my bed at about 10:30. Yes I am that much of a lightweight, but I also think I hadn’t eaten enough that day.

I also think Matt and I could see (and hear) a police (shoot-out?) from the subway station in Astoria, but I can’t find anything about it on the news. Kinda scary?

From Manhattan,

–Erty

I started off my Fourth of July by sleeping in until 3pm. It seems that twelve hours is the amount of time I sleep naturally if I don’t set an alarm, which is okay with me – the only problem being that it’s hard to stay on a consistent schedule with a non-24-hour sleeping/not sleeping cycle. This is why I end up being nocturnal.

Pretty much everywhere was closed and I didn’t particularly feel like cooking, so I wandered across the street to the Thai place and got a sandwich and a bubble tea. Some Hacker Schoolers mentioned a meetup in Prospect Park, which is uphill from my apartment by just a few blocks, so I started walking. Not two blocks away from my apartment, I found a 2″ stack of comic books (spiderman, batman, x-men, etc.) on the ground on the sidewalk, obviously placed there for someone to take. There weren’t any rare or old episodes, but it seemed like a neat find so I took them back to my apartment, buzzing upstairs and getting Levi to let me in because my hands were full.

I tried my walk to Prospect Park again, and it was actually a 20-or-so minute walk. Still, the weather was very nice (in the shade) and I drank my bubble tea along the walk. What I didn’t realize is that Prospect Park is huge. I wandered for 10 minutes before realizing that I was going in the wrong direction, and then turned around and walked a half hour before finding Richard and his (Girlfriend?) sitting on the grass between baseball fields 1 and 2. We sat and chatted for a long while, and Ian, Martin, and Alex eventually joined us. All in all, we spent probably four hours sitting and chatting about various topics. It was incredibly nice out, and despite a few small, non-biting ants and beetles, there were no bugs or other annoyances.

At sundown, we walked through the throngs of people grilling near the edge of the park, where grilling is permitted, and I hopped on the F to 4th Av/9th st, which is close to my apartment. I bought some beer and ginger ale on the way home at a small market, and went up on the roof to see if I could see any fireworks. The neighbors from two apartments over were also on their roof, and they invited me over, so I hopped over (the roofs are connected), and hung out with them for a while. I met one guy, Dan, who worked in Finance, and we chatted for a bit – there were probably a dozen of the neighbors, in their mid to late twenties.

The beer I got (Shock Top Apple Something) was really awful and I’m probably just going to dump most of it, which is a shame. It was pretty much halfway between a apple cider and a beer, except that the apple flavor was that terrible fake apple flavor like in laffy taffy. Ick.

There were some good fireworks around the apartment – no professional shows except way off in the distance, but plenty of small, probably illegal shows. I hung out with the neighbors for probably an hour and a half before heading back inside, where I surfed the internet for a while before heading to bed.